He kept waiting for something to rush out at them, to attack them, but the store remained still. They were only twenty feet away from the grocery section but he still didn't smell anything rotten in the building. He couldn't shake the crazy notion that everything within this store had become strangely mummified. That they would get to the groceries only to realize they'd all been preserved by some strange new threat that had been unleashed by the quakes and would turn them into stone like a mortal looking upon Medusa.
They stepped into another large aisle that ran perpendicular to the one they'd been in. Some of the boxes and cans had been pulled from the displays set up in the center of the aisle but there were still a number of them left. Across from him was the cleaning supplies section. It had been just as picked over as the displays but there were still supplies lining the shelves.
"What is going on here?" Riley asked.
"I don't think a lot of people in this town survived." Carl lifted his hat and ran a hand across his forehead before settling it back into place. "I don't know if they've become The Lost Souls, the rabid freaky ones, or if they simply died from the quakes and gas that the quakes released. Either way, I'd guess that the population of this town is nowhere near what it used to be. There would be nothing left in here if it was."
"How could it be in better condition than most of the towns we've passed through and yet have a smaller population?" John inquired.
"I don't know but where the coast was leveled by natural disasters, this area was leveled by the sickness."
"Why wouldn't the survivors take more from here?" Riley asked.
"Maybe they only took what they could fit, maybe they left some for others, or maybe they were killed before they got a chance to come back," Xander answered. "They might just come back once a week to stock up on supplies if they think that no one else is around to raid them."
"Or this could be a trap," she said.
"Or that," Xander agreed. They all turned to stare at the food again. "I don't think there's anyone in here with us now."
"Why?" Josh asked.
"Those things aren't patient. If they were in here with us, they would have come after us already."
Riley frowned thoughtfully before speaking. "That's true."
"I don't care what is going on, we should just get some food and get out of here," John said.
Josh nodded eagerly. "I agree."
Xander walked over and pulled an abandoned cart from the infant section; he picked up the clothes sitting in the seat of the cart and dropped them on a box for a crib. Riley pulled another cart from the sports bra area. Carl and John had walked toward the front and grabbed two more. One of their carts gave an annoying clicking noise every few feet.
"Every time," Carl muttered and lifted the back wheels off the ground to stop the noise. "There's no fruit left in the produce section and all the bread and muffins are gone. They did leave the cakes and cupcakes behind."
"No taste," John said and dropped a box of cereal into his cart.
"Did they take all the perishables?" Riley asked.
"Smells like it," Xander said as he sniffed at the air again. This place should have reeked but all he detected was the scent that all department stores had. It was a scent that he could never place the source of, but that he recognized immediately upon entering one. It was like walking into a high school, they all smelled the same.
"Josh, you should stay up here. Follow us at the top of the aisles and keep watch for anything unusual," Carl said.
Josh looked a little uneasy at the suggestion but he nodded and shifted the gun in his hand. "Want to split up?" Xander asked Carl.
Carl shook his head. "It would go faster but we're better grouped together. Separating is just offering smaller, easier targets if something does attack."
That was about as pleasing an idea as jumping into a bonfire, Xander thought as he nodded his agreement. He pushed his cart toward the frozen food and dairy section. He stared at the completely empty shelves in disbelief; this store was beginning to make him feel as if he'd just entered a time warp. The shelves that were normally filled with eggs, cheeses, yogurts, and other assorted products were completely empty; there wasn't even a single package of cheese left.
On his right, all of the frozen pizzas, meatballs, lasagnas, and other frozen dinners were gone from the darkened freezers. "This place just gets weirder and weirder. What did they do with it all?" Riley asked.
Xander pondered that question as they walked past the empty aisles. "I think they threw it all out," he answered when they turned into the paper aisle.
"Toilet paper," John said with a grin and began to happily toss it into his cart before turning to Xander. "What makes you think they did that?"
"There's no way they were able to eat all that food, not if Carl's smaller population theory is correct. But let's say that he's wrong and there is enough of them that they were able to eat all of the perishable food, there would be no food left in here if that were true. I think they took what they could eat and threw the rest of it away before it could go bad and possibly contaminate other food, or attract animals and other unwanted things."
"I think you're right," Carl said as he tossed some paper towels into his cart. "It makes a lot of sense anyway."
They waited as John grabbed two more packages of toilet paper before moving onto the next aisle. Josh followed along the aisles with them while they moved up and down until their carts were overflowing with supplies. They pushed the carts to the broken door they'd entered through, emptied them into the back of the truck, and returned to the store.
"More food or other supplies first?" Xander asked.
"Let's get some other supplies first. If we have enough time we can grab more food later and we can always return tomorrow," Riley said.
Carl stopped by the jewelry counter on their way to the clothing section and grabbed a handful of watches from the display case. He shoved them into his pockets before following them. They moved rapidly through the clothing section, grabbing as much as they could fit into the carriages and guessing at the sizes of the others at the cabin. Next they went through and gathered supplies from the shampoo, soap and toothpaste aisles before hitting the first-aid section. They stocked up on Band-Aids, peroxide, bandages, alcohol, and any other disinfectants they could find. Carl tried the door to the pharmacy but it was locked and the window had a metal gate over it.
"We'll have to come back and see if we can break it open," Riley whispered.
Carl scowled but nodded his agreement. The theory they'd been lured into the store nagged at Xander, but he shook it off as they left those aisles behind. He told himself they'd been in here for too much time already for this to be a trap. He relaxed further after they dropped the clothes off and returned to grab sneakers and work boots.
"Too bad they didn't have some winter supplies," John said as he dropped two boxes of sneakers into his cart.
"I think we're going to have to go through homes to find those," Carl told him.
John made a face and shook his head. "I hate going through people's houses even more than I hate entering these giant stores."
"I have to agree," Riley said. "I feel like I'm invading their privacy or something."
Xander squeezed her hand as they turned their carts into the sporting goods section. He understood her feeling but if the people were gone, was it even private anymore? Even if the answer was no, it didn't make searching through people's things any easier.
"Whoever has been coming in here must be pretty well supplied already," Josh said as he peered into the long glass case in the center of the sports section.
Xander stepped closer to the case and peered in at the guns inside of it. "They're all hunting rifles," Carl said as he walked around the display. "Three thirty aught six's, four two-seventy Winchesters, four twenty-twos, and five three o' eight Winchesters. There was more here before." He pointed to the empty spots inside the cabinet.
Xander stepped behind the co
unter but he didn't know which rifle was which. The key to open the display cases dangled from one of the locks. "Why did they leave all these guns?" John asked. "I can understand not being able to take all of the food but why wouldn't they take more of these?"
"This is a large hunting community," Carl said as he continued to study the rifles still in the case. "They know how to take care of themselves, how to hunt, and fish, and trap. The population may not be as small as I'd originally assumed. They may actually be finding their own food supply right now. They didn't take many of these rifles because they didn't need them or maybe they only took what they could carry out of here. Either way I doubt there will be much ammunition left here."
"There's not," Xander said as he pulled out two boxes and placed them on top of the case. "Twenty-two bullets."
"Of course they are," Carl muttered and shook his head. "Better than nothing. We'll still take some of these rifles. We might be able to find more ammunition elsewhere."
Xander nodded and grabbed two of each rifle from the cases. He handed them to the others to load into their carts. They moved through the rest of the section, picking through the lanterns, tents, and knives that had been left behind. Riley proudly hefted a crossbow she'd found beneath a raft that had blown up when it was knocked off a shelf. Xander grabbed a boxed raft off of the shelf and a couple of oars. He put them in his cart and turned to lift the blown up raft so that Riley could climb underneath it. She came back with a few boxes of arrows and another crossbow.
"Those will come in handy," John said as he eyed the weapons in Riley's hands. "Less noise."
"I'm not so sure you should be allowed to touch them, you might shoot yourself," Carl said.
"I'm doing just fine with a gun."
"If you shoot yourself in the leg I'm leaving your ass behind."
John gave him the finger, put the bow back in the cart, and turned away from them to examine the rest of the supplies on the shelf. "Let's unload and hit automotive," Riley suggested.
It was almost three o'clock when they returned to the store and headed for the automotive center. "At least we'll be able to make it back to the cabin before dark," John said.
"Why do you always have to say something when we're still in the middle of everything," Carl muttered from where he searched through the tires. He pulled out two large tires and rolled them over to set them against the wall. "It's like you're trying to get us attacked."
"Yeah yeah," John said dismissively as he dropped some oil filters into his carriage. "Maybe saying it out loud will have the opposite effect this time Mr. Superstitious."
"You really do just want someone to attack us," Riley told him and dropped a couple cans of fix a flat in her carriage.
Searching behind the desk, Xander pulled out his flashlight to read through the manual he discovered behind the counter. He flipped through the cars listed on the pages until he found the truck and belt sizes they would need for it. Turning, he searched through the shelves for the right belts. He'd look for supplies for the other cars afterward but the truck was the most important vehicle they had.
A distant sound barely even nudged at his consciousness as he finally succeeded in locating the belts for the truck. Josh slipped around the corner of the doorway from where he'd been keeping lookout by the sports section.
"Someone just entered the building," he said in a low hiss that drew Xander's attention away from the shelf.
Carl flattened himself against the wall next to the garage-sized door that led to the main store and gestured for Josh to do the same. Riley stood on the opposite side of the door, her back pressed against the wall as she held her gun before her. Xander tried to hear anything else within the store, but the eerie, otherworldly hush that had enveloped it since they'd entered had descended once more. Carefully placing the belts on the counter so as not to make a sound, he hurried over to Riley's side.
John emerged from behind a row of tires with a cart full of antifreeze and wipers. Carl's face was thunderous as he pointed at John and then made a slashing motion across his throat with his hand. 'I'm going to kill you,' he mouthed to John when he stopped walking.
John frowned at Carl in confusion and held his hands up in a questioning gesture. John's head shot up when something clattered to the floor with a loud rattling noise that echoed inside the store.
CHAPTER 19
John,
John was trying to decide if he wanted to go anywhere near Carl as his friend continued to shoot daggers at him with his eyes. Another rattling bang followed by the maniacal laugh of those things made his decision for him. He scurried in a crouch through the shadows to the opposite side of the door that Carl stood beside. He squeezed in next to Xander and a high metal shelf stacked from floor to ceiling with tires.
John kept his back against the wall. He strained to hear anything outside of the beat of his own heart in his ears as silence descended. Beside him, Xander slid his hand into Riley's. She pointed to Carl across the way and then at the floor. Carl frowned at her as she knelt down and made another gesture with her hand to indicate she intended to peek around the doorway. Xander kept hold of her hand while she rested her free palm on the ground and poked her head around the door to look in the store. She ducked back again and rose to her feet.
Lifting her hands, she shook her head in a gesture that John took to mean she had no idea where they were or from where they had entered. She held out her hand, pointed around to all of them, and then made a walking gesture with her index and middle finger across her palm. John knew what the gesture meant, but he broke out in a sweat at the idea of going through that door.
John shook his head as Carl knelt and poked his head around the side of the door too. He stared out there for a few minutes before gesturing to Josh. The teen bent down beside Carl who whispered something to him. Josh shook his head but Carl rose to his feet, took hold of his arm and said something more. John watched as the color faded from Josh's face, he nodded and looked over at them. Before John knew what was happening, Josh rushed across the massive door to join them. Riley and Xander flattened themselves against the wall to make more room for him but he hurried past them to rise beside John.
John held his breath as he waited for a reaction from outside of those doors. Carl knelt again and rested his hand on the floor. He slid his head around the door before hurrying across the opening at a low crawl to their side. Somewhere in the store something rattled and clattered to the floor, John could hear it spinning across the linoleum but the rest of the store remained still.
The hair on his arms stood on end. He began to get the distinct impression they were being hunted, that those things somehow knew they were hiding somewhere within the shadows of this store. All he could imagine were velociraptors steadily creeping toward them, minus the oversize claw clicking across the floor.
He bit on his bottom lip to suppress a curse as he twisted the gun in his hand and leaned his head against the metal shelving housing the tires. His gaze slid over the floor to ceiling glass wall across from them that led into the large garage bay. He hadn't tried the doors but he'd peeked into the area enough to know that the garage doors were closed. There had been another regular door across the way from the bay doors though. He couldn't shake the belief that the door could be opening even now to admit new monsters into the building.
His eyes were riveted on the garage area as Carl stepped in front of them and huddled in like a quarterback. "I think we're going to have to make a move," he whispered.
John glanced at him before focusing on the glass wall across from them again. "If they come into this area we'll be able to take them out," Josh said. "We have the advantage of surprise."
Carl gestured to the doors across from them, the same ones that John couldn't look away from. "The doors in there could be open; they could be coming inside even now. If they pin us in here, we're screwed."
John muttered a curse as he shifted his gun again and wiped the sweat from his brow. "We might be able to
make it to the backdoor," Xander said. "Do you have any idea where they came in from?" he asked Josh.
Josh shook his head; he'd taken on the hue of Kermit and looked like he was trying not to vomit. "It sounded like they might have come in from the front but I didn't see."
Xander's face drained of color, his hand briefly went to his head before he moved closer to the rest of them. They were all so close that John could feel Xander's breath as he spoke. "It was them," Xander whispered. "They're the ones that emptied the store of the rotten food, and set it up so that it would be a tempting place to come into. There are a lot of supplies still left in this store because it's their hunting grounds."
John imagined he looked much like Josh now as his stomach threatened to empty its contents onto the ground. Those things were so damn smart and apparently getting smarter with every day that passed. "Why didn't they come in here for us sooner?" Riley hissed.
"I don't know. Maybe they move between all the stores in this area. Maybe they were hoping we would take up residence in here. They might also just check it once a day, but we have to go, now," Carl insisted.
Even as he said the word 'now' John saw a shifting of shadows through the glass windows across from them. "Yes, we do," he breathed.
Carl followed his gaze to the doors and nodded briskly as more shadows began to shift and coalesce within the large garage bay. If they didn't move now they were going to get pinned in between both groups. As of now, he didn't think those things were certain they were in the store. He had a feeling they would be moving with a lot less care and a lot more excitement if they did.
John had to fight the compulsion to move with a lot more speed but he stayed low and followed carefully behind Carl, Riley, and Xander. Glancing back at Josh, he took a step back to allow the younger kid to move past him into the sport's section. He took one last look at the glass wall of the automotive center just as the first sick person crept into view. Sliding around the door, he held his breath as he waited to hear the unearthly howl that usually accompanied those things when they were on the trail of their prey.